Tesla Motors Falcon-Wing Model X Electric SUV Debuts

Tesla Model X looks in photos like a sleek crossover SUV. Tesla Motors (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk called the new electric vehicle much more at Thursday night's unveiling in the Los Angeles area, and said the company would start taking orders Friday at noon.

"What if you could have a car that has more functionality than a minivan, more style than an SUV and more performance than a sports car? That's the Model X," Musk said. The S platform lets Tesla bring the Model X to market fast, he added.

On the floor of the Tesla design studio, the Model X sported falcon-wing doors — not quite gull wing, but what Musk called split gull-wing with a second hinge that lets them fold upward in tight parking spaces.

"The opening arc of a gull-wing on an SUV would be too wide," Musk tweeted on Twitter before the event."

Tesla stock rose 2% Thursday ahead of the debut and slightly more after hours. Update: Tesla shares fell 5.2% to 30.90 short before noon Friday.

A crowd of hundreds gathered at the electric sports car maker's Hawthorne, Calif., studio for the event and test drives of the Model S, a $57,400 electric sedan the 2003 startup automaker will start delivering in July. The entryway was flanked by rows of its $109,000 Roadster sports cars.

California Governor Jerry Brown spoke at the event.

"We're setting the pace," he told the crowd. "We need to imagine how we can change the design because we can make our way out of our mess."

This third EV debut from Tesla is positioned against nonelectric luxury SUVs. The Model X seats 7. It has all-wheel drive with dual motors - in the front and back. And Musk says it goes from 0-60 miles per hour in a very fast 4.4 seconds. The price hasn't been announced but it's expected to be in the very general ballpark of the Model S.

"This is a variant on that platform which will probably also compete with the Audi Q7 and BMW X5," Tesla Vice President of Business Development Diarmuid O'Connell told IBD in an interview. "It's not that low-price, high-volume vehicle the company eventually aims to make," which might come about through partnerships with bigger automakers that have economies of scale.

Tesla already has relationships and small EV production runs with Toyota (TM) and Daimler that leverage its electric battery platform and drive train. It uses the approach of a lot of little lithium ion batteries encased in a flat pack that become part of the chassis of the car, for which it claims safety benefits and car-design flexibility, vs. the bulkier battery setups of EVs like the Nissan (NSANY) Leaf and General Motors (GM) Chevrolet Volt.

Tesla Model X looks in photos like a sleek crossover SUV. Tesla Motors (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk called the new electric vehicle much more at Thursday night's unveiling in the Los Angeles area, and said the company would start taking orders Friday at noon.

"What if you could have a car that has more functionality than a minivan, more style than an SUV and more performance than a sports car? That's the Model X," Musk said. The S platform lets Tesla bring the Model X to market fast, he added.

On the floor of the Tesla design studio, the Model X sported falcon-wing doors — not quite gull wing, but what Musk called split gull-wing with a second hinge that lets them fold upward in tight parking spaces.

"The opening arc of a gull-wing on an SUV would be too wide," Musk tweeted on Twitter before the event."

Tesla stock rose 2% Thursday ahead of the debut and slightly more after hours. Update: Tesla shares fell 5.2% to 30.90 short before noon Friday.

A crowd of hundreds gathered at the electric sports car maker's Hawthorne, Calif., studio for the event and test drives of the Model S, a $57,400 electric sedan the 2003 startup automaker will start delivering in July. The entryway was flanked by rows of its $109,000 Roadster sports cars.

California Governor Jerry Brown spoke at the event.

"We're setting the pace," he told the crowd. "We need to imagine how we can change the design because we can make our way out of our mess."

This third EV debut from Tesla is positioned against nonelectric luxury SUVs. The Model X seats 7. It has all-wheel drive with dual motors - in the front and back. And Musk says it goes from 0-60 miles per hour in a very fast 4.4 seconds. The price hasn't been announced but it's expected to be in the very general ballpark of the Model S.

"This is a variant on that platform which will probably also compete with the Audi Q7 and BMW X5," Tesla Vice President of Business Development Diarmuid O'Connell told IBD in an interview. "It's not that low-price, high-volume vehicle the company eventually aims to make," which might come about through partnerships with bigger automakers that have economies of scale.

Tesla already has relationships and small EV production runs with Toyota (TM) and Daimler that leverage its electric battery platform and drive train. It uses the approach of a lot of little lithium ion batteries encased in a flat pack that become part of the chassis of the car, for which it claims safety benefits and car-design flexibility, vs. the bulkier battery setups of EVs like the Nissan (NSANY) Leaf and General Motors (GM) Chevrolet Volt.

As IBD reported this week, Tesla aims to stay flexible and grow through building its own cars — reaching from the high end further toward the midmarket and eventually to the masses — and through technology-licensing and parts-supplying deals with bigger automakers.

Tesla's goal is to build the Model S at a pace of 20,000 units a year toward the end of 2013 and to be in production with the Model X then, if all stays on schedule. Production in volume won't be till 2014, Musk said Thursday night.

Tesla Motors stock holds an IBD Composite Rating of 86, meaning it has performed better over the last 52 weeks than 86% of publicly traded companies. Although, the Palo Alto, Calif., startup still has a low earnings per share rating.

The other electric sports car startup, Fisker Automotive, this week said it laid off 26 people as it renegotiates some loan terms with the Department of Energy. Both it and Tesla have hundreds of millions of dollars in loan arrangements with the DOE. The agency says due to some delays not untypical of startups, Fisker hadn't met required milestones to continue drawing on the lending available. It had received nearly $200 million. The milestone timetable is being revised and its business plan checked.

Fisker is known for the Fisker Karma luxury electric sports car. Its remaining arrangement for DOE lending relates largely to its next EV effort, Project Nina.

"We have completed Phase One of the re-commissioning of a former General Motors plant in Wilmington, Delaware," Fisker said in a statement emailed to IBD this week. "Much of the engineering, design and development is near complete and we expect to ramp up operations again quickly."

Tesla said customers and other attendees came to the Thursday event from 30 states and 18 countries. Musk told them Tesla was created to make a difference and that the world desperately needs sustainable transport.

"If we don't solve the problem this century we are fracked," he said. "If you don't make compelling electric cars, if you don't make electric cars not almost as good as gasoline cars, not as good as gas cars — if you don't make electric cars that are better, it's not going to happen."

Only a relatively handful of EVs are on American roads now, and like hybrids, they're still more expensive in most driving situations than comparable gasoline vehicles.

See Also

U.S. auto sales grew at a slower pace than analysts expected in February as cold weather was more of a deterrent for consumers than lower fuel prices were an incentive. The seasonally adjusted annualized rate of sales also cooled off, slowing to a pace of 16.23 million units from 16.66 million in ...

Stocks came off session lows Tuesday afternoon as the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones industrial average pulled back from record highs and the Nasdaq slid from a 15-year peak. The Nasdaq fell 0.7%, the S&P 500 was off 0.6% and the Dow lost 0.5%. Volume was mixed, up 5% on the Nasdaq and down 4% ...

Stocks were lower at midday Tuesday amid mixed earnings reports and weak February auto sales. The Nasdaq was down 0.9%; the S&P 500 and Dow Jones industrial average each shed 0.8%. Volume was running flat on the Nasdaq and down 7% on the NYSE compared with same time Monday. Auto sales for ...

Stocks dipped in early action Tuesday, as investors took in a raft of mixed earnings reports and weak February auto sales.The Nasdaq and the S&P 500 slipped 0.5% each. The Dow Jones industrial average nosed down 0.4%. Volume-wise, the stock market today got off to a weak start, with volume down ...

A more than $40 billion merger plan announced over the weekend begins to build what one analyst calls an "automotive powerhouse." IBD Leaderboard company NXP Semiconductors (NASDAQ:NXPI), a connected-car chipmaker and also a supplier of some chip technology in Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhones, said it ...

03/02/2015 09:49 PM ET

More Technology Articles:

Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com (NASDAQ:JD) on Tuesday unexpectedly reported a fourth-quarter profit and better-than-expected revenue growth. But its morning breakout ended badly while shares of its larger rival hit a record low. JD.com, which came public last year, reported adjusted earnings per ...

The Geneva International Motor Show underway this week is dishing up more competition in high-end electric and plug-in hybrid cars for Tesla Motors (NASDAQ:TSLA). The car debuts come as Tesla stock faces pressure on several fronts and the specter of possible Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) car looms down the ...

Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) and other infrastructure-as-a-service providers will put up with low profit margins as they aim to shift customers over the long term to more profitable cloud computing products, says Goldman Sachs in a report. The e-commerce leader is expected to break out revenue for ...

Wall Street analysts trying to predict the average selling price of the Apple Watch might be underestimating the impact of consumers buying extra wrist bands for the highly anticipated smartwatch. Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster predicts that the average selling price for the newest Apple ...

Select market data is provided by Interactive Data Corp. Real Time Services. Price and Volume data is delayed 20 minutes unless otherwise noted, is believed accurate but is not warranted or guaranteed by Interactive Data Corp. Real Time Services and is subject to Interactive Data Corp. Real Time Services terms. All times are Eastern United States. *Reflects real-time index prices.